Stuck
by emerald-eyed-stag
Summary: Hermione and Ron are trapped in the divination classroom, a coincidence? or are a couple of amateur cupids hard at work? A challenge set by Cheelalaucha on Pinocchio's forum. pl pls R


This is a fic written for a challenge on Pinocchio's forum, and I hope that you like it. It had certain things that we had to meet, and a bunch of characters that had to be in there...really long to explain, bottom line is that it had to be about these 2 characters getting stuck in the transfiguration classroom and only one could have their wand…and they had to be let out by Gilderoy Lockhart, which was fun to write in somehow!

Now, it takes place sixth year after Lavender and Ron kiss for the first time, and for the purpose of stupid comments I added when I was tired and not thinking, Ron and Harry take divination.

Hope that you like it,

Luv Ella

Disclaimer: Not mine!

**Stuck**

"Uh, Ron…"

"Yeah."

"Um, well, I think that we're stuck in here…"

"What?"

"I think that we're stuck in here."

"Why the hell would you say that?"

"Because the door wont open you dolt!"

Hermione Granger was busy banging at the door of the divination classroom, already one of her least favourite places to be. This particular incident would definitely bump it up the list a little…

"But how the hell could we be locked in? Is that even possible?"

"Of course it's possible!"

"Open it by magic then!" Ron said indignantly, screwing up his nose at his best friend. Hermione scowled Ron, and rolled her eyes. Groping around in her pocket, and hoping to god that Trelawney's door wasn't protected against the Alohamora charm, Hermione avoided looking at the red haired boy standing next to her. In her opinion, she had nothing left to say to him, and the fact that she was now locked in the room with him meant nothing, and it certainly didn't mean that they were going to make up…

"It's not there." She said finally, horrified, looking up at Ron with wide eyes. Ron pulled out his wand, and pointed it at the door, while Hermione searched the ground for hers.

"Alohamora!" he said clumsily, pointing the wand at the door handle. It didn't spring open, inviting them to rush out gratefully into the corridor below, finally isolated from the lavender fumes that had crept their way up their nostrils to fog their brains. It didn't even budge in a pathetic effort to open. The door to the divination classroom remained firmly and most definitely shut.

"Oh move over." Hermione said impatiently. Ron looked slightly hurt. He was half hoping that the door would remain locked. As resentful as Hermione was acting towards him at the moment, Ron would have very much liked the chance to make her listen to him. In actual fact, he had no idea what he would say. Sure, Harry had made him come all the way up to the tallest tower, where Hermione had been hiding, and had tried, without avail, to force his best friends to reconcile. Ron, in his defence, had tried his best, though Ron's best attempt at wooing a girl might not actually be considered that much in the grand scheme of things. Or even the small scheme of things. Bottom line was, he was not one with the ladies, and to him, Hermione was much more than just a 'lady'. She was his best friend, as Harry had most shrewdly pointed out, and it seemed that the chance to talk to her that he had wished for might actually present itself.

Hermione sighed, and handed Ron back his wand, shaking her head, and throwing herself down in one of the squashy armchairs that sat by the mystical fire.

"Hermione, I-"

"No Ron. Just because we are stuck in this damn room does not mean that I am going to talk to you, and it most certainly does not mean that we are going to make up." She said, her head in her hands.

"Well, how are we going to get out of here then?" asked Ron, cursing himself inwardly for not being able to come up with some brilliant speech, proclamation of love even, and that all he could think of talking about was ways in which to distance himself from Hermione…maybe being stuck n this room wasn't such a good thing after all.

"I don't know. No one is going to hear us from up here now… I guess we'll have to wait until morning when classes start…or…doesn't Trelawney live up here? Maybe she could let us out…" Hermione fell silent, puzzled, as Ron slowly shook his head.

"Nope. It's the start of the Christmas Holidays, remember? Trelawney told us today in divination that she was going to some place… I don't know, I wasn't listening…there was a fly under the table, I was watching it instead…" he said, going red as he displayed his short attention span. Hermione didn't take any notice. She remembered how boring Trelawney's speeches were, back in third year, and she didn't find it at all odd that Ron was paying this little attention, in any class. She thought, in fact, that she would be right in guessing that Harry had also been staring at the same fly, equally as bored, though she said nothing. This might cause Ron to laugh, and lead to some sort of friendly conversation between the two of them, wish she most definitely did not want to happen. Instead, she let out a long sigh, and let her head settle back down on the edge of the chair.

"Well, Harry might be able to find us, when he realises that we're missing. He could use the map!" she suggested, optimistically. Ron nodded, smiling, and Hermione quickly looked away.

_This is definitely not how I thought the day would end…_Hermione thought to herself, her head on the edge of the armchair, staring out at the quickly fading sky.

She had come up to the highest tower, where the divination classroom was situated, sick and tired of finding hiding places in which she could mope that Harry was so quick to discover. She was quite sure that he wouldn't be able to find her here, and much less Ron, incidentally, the source of the moping. She hadn't even known that Ron was searching for her in the first place. However, if he was, then she knew the last place that he and Harry would look for her would be up ion the divination classroom, so she took advantage of Trelawney's absence and the fact that the scatterbrained teacher always forgot to lock the classroom door, placing herself strategically by the flames murmuring happily in the fire grate, a bright purple today, and basked in their warmth as the coldness that came from wallowing about Ron Weasley encased her.

Last night, she had seen him kissing Lavender Brown. It wasn't the fact that he was kissing another girl that had Hermione so upset…ok, maybe it was that a little, however, if this was the reason then it merely added insult to injury, thinking about the fact that Lavender was the most sought after girl in the grade. Hermione had always been invisible to half the boys in the school, and it vexed her that Ron had joined the list of ignorant males to choose Lavenders beauty and self-shortened robe hems over her absolute plainness.

"You hungry?" asked Ron, pulling two chocolate frogs from his robes, and offering her one. Hermione shook her head without looking around.

"Hermione-"

"No Ron, I don't want to talk about it." She said dully.

Ron's stomach grumbled, the emptiness still left in it after eating the chocolate frog making his thought float from Hermione to the dinner that must have been being eaten downstairs at that very moment. Harry would be there, sitting with Ginny probably, wondering where the two of them were…_he probably thinks that he's become the perfect matchmaker…_Ron though, laughing at the bitter irony, watching Hermione look haughty and sulky over the other side of the room, refusing to look at him, _Probably thinks that we're up her now, snogging, made up…_

And so they sat. In silence. Ron staring at the back of Hermione's head, passing the time away by trying to master legilimency and read her thoughts. It didn't do any good. Hermione's thought remained completely her own, and all that Ron had to show for his efforts was a bad headache.

It wasn't until about eleven that night when Ron moved from where they were sitting. For a moment he thought that Hermione must have been asleep, but her eye remained open and alert, though she didn't turn her head to him until he begun to move chairs around, and the plump cushions and poufs that adorned the room.

Gathering up all the soft materials that he could find, and taking a throw rug off the lounge that he was sitting on, Ron gestured to the bed.

Hermione blinked.

"What?" she asked, her eyed drooping dangerously, knowing that sleep was near yet not wanting to lower her defences against the boy standing in front of her.

"Er, you can sleep on it?" Ron said, as though suggesting the obvious. Hermione looked thoroughly taken aback, and gave him a small, grateful smile, which was wiped off its slate hastily, as she took her position on the makeshift bed on the floor.

Ron moved two of the armchairs together, and cramped his long limbs into its confinements, awkwardly. Hermione grinned slightly, watching him trying to mould into the shape that was a hundred sizes too small for him.

"Why were you so upset Hermione?" Ron asked, when he had blown out all the candles that were in the room, and, as a result, no light penetrated the room. Ron couldn't see the hand in front of his face. Not that he would be able to move his hand so that it was positioned in front of his face anyway, for at that moment it was hooked under his other arm and propped uncomfortably against the edge of the chair, the confinements of his makeshift bed not all that comfortable of practical to sleep in…

"I thought you knew why…" Hermione's voice came, quietly, when Ron's eyes were almost completely shut, and he was just drifting off to sleep. "I thought that it was obvious…"

Ron's eyes snapped wide open again, all tiredness gone from within him, as he stared into the darkness. What should he do? If I got up now, then what would I even do? I mean, trip over a million things trying to get to Hermione, of course, but once he got there? What would he even say? That he was sorry that he had kissed Lavender Brown? That he was sorry that he didn't take the hint that she liked him? That he loved her, even? Not to mention the first and foremost problem, which was how he was going to get out of the position he had forced himself into without a chainsaw. His arms and legs were bent into the oddest of positions…

It was a moment before he heard the stifled sobs that came from Hermione, who was bitting onto the cushion stolen from Trelawney's chair in a vague attempt to hide the fact that there were tears streaming down her face. But when he did hear them he stopped trying to figure out ways to reach Hermione, and lay his head back down in anguish. He couldn't comfort her now. She was crying! Over him! What was he meant to say to that? No, it was much better that he left her alone, and went to sleep.

"Want some tea?" Hermione asked, the sunlight streaming in on Ron's face through the opened windows, as Ron opened his eyes groggily. Hermione's face swam over him like an angelic blur, as his eyes slid in and out of focus. Ron groaned, and ignored the tea that Hermione was holding out for him. He was obviously still dreaming. This was so simular to the last dream that he had been having that it wasn't all that hard to believe.

"Ron?" Hermione said, sitting attentively on the edge of the lounge bed that he had created. He kept his eyes firmly shut, trying not to wake up. It was such a good dream. "Ron, I'm sorry for everything. I really shouldn't have taken it that hard. We were just friends, and I know that that's all we're going to be. Harry's right, and, well; it looks like we're stuck here, so we may as well be civil to each other. I really am sorry for being so crazy yesterday. I've got it worked out now. I'm ok. Can we go back to being friends again?" Ron opened his eyes slowly. This was _not_ like the dream that he had been having. It was, however the next best thing to her apologising by kissing him, and so he smiled up at he warmly, accepted the tea, and said good morning cheerfully, which made Hermione beam.

"I'm sorry too." He said quietly, sipping at the tea wish Hermione had carefully made using Ron's wand and the ingredients that she had found in the cupboard used by Trelawney for defining the future. She remembered the same tealeaves showing the grim in Harry's mug back when they took the subject, and laughed quietly to herself, before realising that Ron had spoken. She turned red.

"Lets forget about that, shall we?" she suggested, and sipped her own mug, a pink one, like the one that Neville had broken. This room held so many memories. Many of which she never wanted to be forced to remember in her life.

"Well? What can we do today?" Ron asked, looking at Hermione blankly. She shrugged.

"I have no idea. I guess we could throw things out the window and hope that someone sees them, and comes to get us…" she said hopelessly. Ron raised his eyebrows. Hermione, suggesting they deface school property by throwing it out of the tallest tower? He didn't think that he would ever see the day, however, it was only crystal balls and things of the like, which Hermione most certainly would not miss.

They sat by the window, letting things drop down carelessly, watching as people found the assortment of items, usual just as they were being piled over with snow, and though they looked around no one seemed to be that concerned by the fact that there were crystal balls, mugs, incense and gemstones lying haphazardly across the ground.

They pretty much all ignored the pile of junk, which was in fact a desperate plead for help coming form the divination tower, and merely stopped every so often to take a particularly shiny object from the top of the heap before walking right on.

One passer by, however, didn't just take a shiny object, though the person that I am referring to did have a certain mania for things that were shiny, his teeth being on the top of the list. Gilderoy Lockhart was unfortunate enough to be walking past the window just as Ron Wesley chose to drop a particularly heavy rock from the window. Normally, he and Hermione would have checked that the space below them was clear before throwing anything out of the window, however Hermione had found a book to read, and Ron had thrown the rock out carelessly, taking the chase to watch her while she was preoccupied.

A faint 'ouch," that echoed up to where the pair were sitting brought Ron back to reality, and he and Hermione rushed to the window, sticking there heads out.

Lockhart had his hands on his head, and was scanning the sky, looking around as though a piece of it was falling in.

"Wow." He said to himself, looking around the white landscape, "That was some pretty heavy snow…" he looked around, and up at the tower. Ron and Hermione waved frantically, and his eyes were almost upon their hopeful faces when Lockhart's foot collided with the pile of things, and he looked down.

"Oooooh! Shiny!" he said, excited, and, picking up a shiny stone from the top of the pile and throwing it in the air, playing catch with himself, Lockhart skipped on to meet with Dumbledore, the mysterious object from the sky long forgotten. Hermione and Ron sighed, and slumped down the wall inside the classroom, defeated.

"What the ruddy hell is that dolt doing here?" Ron asked. Hermione shook her head.

"Dumbledore probably invited him. I guess he's a little better now, wanted him to have somewhere to go for Christmas." She suggested, and her eyes caught Ron's. They laughed, Hermione giggling in a flirtatious manner that Ron didn't know, and he in a laid back way he wouldn't have thought possible when dealing with the post-kissing-Lavender Hermione.

"I need to eat." He complained. Hermione rolled her eyes. There were two more cupboards that they hadn't explored yet. She was hoping that they were full with food, though she wasn't hopeful. The firmly locked door that led to Trelawney's sleeping quarters seemed to mock them, though Hermione could think of no spell that would open it, and they seemed closer to getting out of the room at all than they were to making their way threw her food stores.

"We have…" she scampered through the contents of one of the cupboards, hopelessly.

"We have one packet of stale biscuits, and one old bag of crisps. Should we eat them now?" she asked. On nodded, greedily, and she sat down opposite him, the dimming light outside making for quite a romantic meal setting. Ron grinned to himself through his stale biscuit, and thought of how maybe getting stuck in her with Hermione might not have been such a bad thing after all. Hermione crunched her way threw her half of the packet of old crisps, screwing up her nose at the taste, and frowned to herself, at the thought of her and Ron just being friends. She would just have to work extra hard at getting over him…

It was at times like this that Hermione wished she had girls as friends. Not just in that room, in the whole world. She did, back at the primary school she had gone to, before she had known that she was a witch. Truth be known, they wouldn't recognise her now. She was as far from the ten-year-old girly girl that she had been then as Ron was from the spluttering stranger she had met on that first train ride to Hogwarts. But she did wish that she had a girl friend to ask for advice when it came to things like this.

Ginny, of course, was great to gossip with; however, Hermione didn't include her in the list of people to run to when she had Ron problems. Chatting with her about Victor Krum's kissing style was a little different, but if she wanted to discuss Ron, she would have to go to Harry, and that was just too damn dangerous.

The night fell. The room was quiet. This was the chase that they had both been waiting for for so long, and yet neither of them was taking it. They were all alone, where no one could find them, and yet they were lying there, silently, alone but for their thoughts. Hermione sighed.

"Are you scared Ron?" she asked, staring up at the ceiling, which had weird patterns on it from the effect of incense and steam pouring onto it for years, and staining the paint, Ron tried, for once, to be serious, and thought about her question.

"Yes." He answered. Hermione went to laugh at the bluntness of the answer, however, Ron continued, bunched once again into his awkward combination of lounge chairs and blankets. "I'm scared of what's going to happen after seventh grade, where will we go? Will we keep in tough? I'm scared that Harry's going to get carried away, and do something stupid about Voldermort, and we wont be there to stop him, or even help him. I'm scared that he and Ginny wont ever get together, cause that will be bad…" he trailed off. He had not been meaning to end the speech will Harry and Ginny. He had been meaning to say something much more relevant, and meaningful, however, he had lost his nerve. It was ironic, however, that the fear he had left out was probably the worst one of all. There were a few of them actually, which he didn't think he could ever voice to Hermione. That something would happen to her. That he would die without ever kissing her. That she would never know what he felt about her. That she would move overseas after Hogwarts, and bring up ten kids with Victor Krum in a mansion somewhere. The latter wasn't so much a fear as a recent nightmare of his, that he didn't dare share with anyone, as Harry would mock him, Ginny would roll her eyes and Hermione would probably hex him for being so strange.

Hermione was taken aback with his answer. She was, in fact, only inquiring about whether he was afraid that they would never get out of the room, at least in time for Christmas, however, Ron's answer had been much more interesting than the simple yes that she was expecting.

He was much more deep than the goofy exterior suggested, which made Hermione annoyed. This revelation would only make it much more hard to get over him. God she wished that she had a girl to talk about this with…or even a guy to help take her mind off Ron. Maybe she could kiss Harry…To make Ron jealous!

_No Hermione, _she scowled herself, _that was not an invitation for you to think about Ron again…probably for the best though…Ginny would have killed me._

Ron's ears began to turn red, thinking of all that he had just exposed to Hermione.

"What are you scared of then?" he asked her, trying to make her forget about his little spur of confessions. Hermione took a deep breath, and let out a bitter laugh.

"Where do you want me to start?" she said, sadly. Ron sat up, draping his legs over the side of the chair.

"At the beginning. It's not like we have any place to be, is it?" he said, chuckling slightly. Hermione smiled.

"Same as you, really, but I'm scared that I wont get good enough grades in my Newts, which I know that you'll laugh at, but it's true. I guess…don't worry, that's stupid, I haven't told anyone that." She said, stopping suddenly. Ron smiled.

"No! Please, tell me. What is said in the divination classroom stays n the divination classroom." He said, plonking himself down on Hermione's bed, next to her. "Well, except for the funny things that happen in class, because that's funny, telling you afterwards!" he added, laughing slightly. Hermione smiled.

"Well, I guess the reason that I always want to do o well is to prove to my parents that it's not a load of rubbish. At the start, I think that it was to prove to myself that it wasn't a load of rubbish…does that make sense?" she asked, looking at Ron nervously as though she expected him to slap her. He smiled kindly.

"Of course it does. I would want to too. " He said, "Now, next thing that your scared of? Though I am glad that I have discovered the reason for your compulsive studying!"

"I'm scared that you and Harry will go out and fight Voldermort and leave me here. I'm scared that you'll get hurt." Ron stared at her. Had she meant scared that he would get hurt? Or scared that he and Harry would get hurt? Of course, he didn't want Harry to get hurt, but if that had been a you as in a singular you, then he might just have the inspiration to be compulsive…

"Can I have a turn? At saying what I'm scared off?" he asked her, his insides squirming uncomfortably, nervously, the way that they did when he tried to do something impulsively, like the feeling that you get the moment that you jump off a diving board, suspended in the air for that split of a second where you have doubts that you will ever return to earth.

Hermione nodded. Ron, in an instant, moved over and pressed his lips against hers, a wonderful sensation spreading through his relieved body, as she didn't move away, but actually moved forward, wrapping her arms around Ron's neck and he felt much more wonderful than he ever had kissing Lavender Brown.

Across the castle, Ginny and Harry hi fived, and he pulled her up off the lounge in the common room and did a victory dance around the empty room, laughing in triumph, the marauders map lying forgotten on the floor.

Ron woke up, his arm wrapped around Hermione's sleeping form, still on her makeshift bed from the night before. The night before…Ron grinned broadly, and pried himself away from Hermione, reluctantly. He could remember staying awake very late, talking about everything that he had ever thought of, his hand entwined in hers, blissfully happy, until they had fallen asleep, the sun rising in the distance telling them that they had spent much too long talking.

Ron scouted around the room, looking for the tealeaves. He wanted to do something nice for Hermione, and looking for the tea seemed the best way to do that, in this room devoid of all things small and shiny. Kissing her before she even woke up wouldn't have done the trick, let alone be entirely creepy, and so he restrained himself, and looked for the teas leaves.

It must have been almost midday, but the looks of the sun, which was high in the sky, making the icicles that clung to the windowsill drip down the wall outside.

"Er, glass of water?" Ron asked, when Hermione's eyes started to flutter open. She peered up at Ron's freckled face, confused…it was so like the dream she had been having…

His ears went red, and he held out a mug filled with water he had produced out of his wand. "Er, I couldn't find the tea leaves, sorry." He said, sitting down beside her. Hermione sat up, and laughed, taking the mug from him.

"You wouldn't have. I used the last of them yesterday!" she said, giggling. Ron groaned, and looked around the room, which looked as though a hurricane had hit it, everything turned upside down from the search for the tealeaves.

"Professor Lockhart!" Harry said in shock, he and Ginny making their way back up to the Griffindore common room, laughing _very_ platonically about something or other. It was late Christmas Eve, and the brilliant orange sunset shone in on them and gasped at their faces gratefully.

The blonde ex writer looked slightly forewarn, though his hair was back to being unnaturally hard and swept back, and his teeth still flashed white and proudly.

"What are you doing here?" Ginny asked kindly, smiling at their old professor. Lockhart gave them a groggy, lopsided grin.

"Just been catching up with Dumbledore, and the other staff. The people at my new fan club wanted me to get reacquainted with my old friends, said that it was good for me…"

"New fan club?" asked Harry, exasperated, knowing full well that the man standing before him had never done anything to deserve a fan club in his life, and he found it hard to believe that anyone would start one when he hadn't put out a book for the last four years.

"Yes yes, those people that I live with…you know, that nurse woman, and frank and Alice Longbottom, and-ALOHAMORA!-Sorry, can I help you? Would you like an autograph? Tea maybe?" Lockhart trailed off; unaware that he had said anything out of the ordinary, and that Ginny and Harry were now both looking at him strangely. He was, instead, staring out the window blankly, an odd, glazed look over his face.

"Professor?" prompted Ginny.

"Right! Right! Well, I was just on my way up to visit old Trelawney…" he said, "Must be off, she's the only one of my old fans that I haven't seen yet! Ciao." And he bounced away, throwing and catching quite a pretty stone in his hand, smiling at it as though he didn't quite know where it came from. Harry raised his eyebrow, as he watched Lockhart turn the corner. He turned to Ginny, and they stood there for a minute, before their face's spasmed in horror at the exact same moment.

Ginny and Harry set off after Professor Lockhart at a run, hoping that they could catch him before he ruined the plan.

Hermione and Ron broke apart quickly, Ron holding tightly onto her arm as they stood by the window, listening to the commotion outside the door. They exchanged anxious looks.

"No! Professor wait!" Harry's voice, they recognised through the wood of the floor, was yelling out in distress, and many footsteps could be heard underneath them. The loudest, heaviest of them all stopped, and there was a rattle at the door.

"Don't! Professor! You'll ruin the Plan!" Cried Ginny's voice, and as a sudden realisation dawned over Ron and Hermione, they jumped apart, and the trapdoor in the floor burst open with a bang.

Lockhart's wispy blonde head poked up through the flor, a stupid smile in his vacant face.

"Oh! The divination classroom! Yes yes, I am here for my palm reading!" he cried wildly, jumping up into the room.

"Have we met?" He asked Hermione and Ron dully, who were staring at the door with exasperated expressions.

"Trelawney?" Lockhart asked, squinting at Hermione carefully.

Hermione looked scandalised, and Ron raised his eyebrows.

"Come in Harry! You too Ginny, we need to kill you!"

"Why? It worked! You should be worshipping us!" Harry's voice said, floating up through the floor. Ron laughed, and then stopped abruptly.

"Wait! How did you know-"

"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good!" Harry cried back, and Ron groaned. So did his stomach.

"Come on." He said, grabbing Hermione by the hand, and Lockhart by the collar, as the five of the headed down to the kitchens for dinner.

**Hope that you enjoyed that! I know that some of it seems pretty random, but it met the criteria of the challenge! haha. neways, PLEASE REVIEW!**

Luv ya, Ella xXx 


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